


And the Flames Burned On

by TheHuxler



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: ALL ABOARD THE ANGST TRAIN, Angst, Burns, Denethor's A+ Parenting, Disability, Disfigurement, Eventual Relationships, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-War of the Ring, Pre-Slash, Random Council Members, Scars, Self-Esteem Issues, Who I Made Up, no beta we die like Boromir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:14:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28971918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheHuxler/pseuds/TheHuxler
Summary: Faramir is burned and disfigured by the funeral pyre. The heat haunts him. An old councilor plots against him."His skin felt so hot, warm—like it still was burning, and it was not the same flame as before, in the snatches of reality that seemed so much like nightmare. It was a deeper burning, a heat had settled beneath the surface of his skin and would not abate. It snapped and rent, peeled from the inside."
Relationships: Aragorn | Estel/Faramir (Son of Denethor II)
Comments: 45
Kudos: 47





	1. The Flames

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! My next Faramir chapter story! I am afraid I've entered a very predictable rut of Faramir-whump, so I am taking pains to make this have a bit more substance than my average fare. I also recently read "The Minor Fall The Major Lift" by Tiofrean, which was posted recently, and I was very impressed by the quiet...dignity that Faramir had. So I am trying hard to develop something similar here, which I hope comes across as the story develops.

When Faramir had woken in the House of Healing, long after Aragorn had healed him and the fever had subsided, he had felt, still, aflame. His vision had been blurry even then, his hands shaking and heavy beneath sheets, and he had not realized until he managed to fight off the clinging lethargy and maneuvered his hands clumsily to the surface of his face that his eyes and face and neck were wound over in bandages. They must have been removed before—when Aragorn was in the process of healing him, and now Faramir clutched and pawed at them ineffectually, his fingers stiff as if they were covered over in frost and aching with cold. 

His skin felt so hot, warm—like it still was burning, and it was not the same flame as before, in the snatches of reality that seemed so much like nightmare. It was a deeper burning, a heat that had settled beneath the surface of his skin and would not abate. It snapped and rent, peeled from the inside. 

He could not remove the bandages fast enough, had instead groped blindly around himself, looking for water or ice or cool stone, something to push to the burning flesh, something to seep out the warmth. 

He did not feel it as his hand collided with bed and nightstand and glass, but he heard it—the dull thud and the skittering shatter of glass across the stone, the slide of shards there across the room. He could not support himself as his throat choked with the first dry heaves, his body twisting with pain, could only roll himself limply to the edge of the bed to hang his head and wretch. It was another burn then, as the bile crawled up his throat—and the aching scratch of heat. 

He could not call out, as he lay heaving, cheek pressed to linen and hacking bile. There had been no one even to call out to, and he was not sure he would have called out to them even if he could, he was so insensate with pain. He could only breathe, drag air into lungs and tremble apart on the bed until darkness claimed him again. 

——

Faramir's fingers prodded numb flesh. He stared at his face, reflected in the washbasin, and the thick ropey scars there. They licked up one side of his face, crawled like fingers towards eye and brow, spattered shades of too-red and too-pale and wound down again, thicker and red and angry. They reached around his neck like chain—thick lines, collared by scars, until they disappeared beneath the neck of his nightshirt and poked out again across the surface of his left hand. 

Those ones were hidden often—the ones on his hand—by the edge of his sling, so that just the edges of fingers dangled forth. Yet those digits were also gnarled, skin dimpled as though gnawed, and the sling would have done nothing but draw the eye (more than if his hand had been allowed to dangle lip from his side), if it had not been for his wretched face.

It ached when he moved or smiled or did much of anything. So ignorant he had been before, to the minute facial movements that plagued him with small stabbing pains. He had always been expressive, Boromir had said, but Faramir would have liked to believe that had been schooled from him through years of meetings with his father and unending council sessions. He realized now, however, that even those placid, impassive expressions brought with them the unconscious movements; a twitch of a nostril here, a curl of the brow there. The pain was with him always, the same way the heat had invaded his skin. It was not a dull ache but a sharp one, needle-like and acute, and it settled often in the pound of his temples, the ache of too-tight muscles. 

He did not realize he had knocked the bowl away until the water splashed across the floor, and the vessel knocked and rolled hollowly across the stones, clattering against the far wall. He leaned heavily against his desk, sinking into his chair, and watched as the water gathered in the lines between the paving stones, running through cracks and darkening in speckles. 

He sat a long while, staring at his face distorted through the reflection of the puddle on the floor. From here, his skin looked almost normal, if perhaps just tanned unevenly, as if he had fallen asleep half-shaded in the noon sun and the heat which burned beneath his skin was simply the remnants of the spring warmth. He imagined Henneth Annûn, the cool springs there which ran down from the white mountains, miles to their north. He imagined dipping his head beneath, the cool water sliding around his skin like sheets of silk, and lapping away the last of his warmth till his body was grey and marbled with cold.

His breath caught as he breathed in, and when he exhaled it was with a shudder as he tore his eyes away from the pool, back towards his desk and the clothing folded there. He would be needed soon in the council chambers, and to be late would be an insult to everyone attending. 

He did not stand as he pulled the tunic over his head, for he knew his legs would shake as the fabric skated over tender, knotted flesh. It took maneuvering, always, to fit his bad arm through the sleeve. It was not strong enough yet, in the weeks after the coronation, to support its own weight for long, and it’s movements always were sluggish and erratic, drifting so often past where it was intended to go. His hand caught painfully against the cloth as he forced it through the sleeve, and he curled fingers against his chest as he leaned against his knees, struggling to breathe deeply. 

He could feel the sting of shame and embarrassment even now, that too like a burn, as he remembered his first council meeting following his release from the House of Healing, when Aragorn and Imrahil had still been away at the Black Gate. How, despite the pain, he forgot so often the useless infirmity of his arm. How parched and hot, always hot he had been in that chilled stone chamber, slips of light dipping through cuts in the stone and spilling over the white slab table, lighting on his skin like thin fingers of fire. He had reached for his glass, trembling, with that useless, decrepit arm, and it had slipped from its sling, dead weight, and knocked against the glass—so like when he had first woken, confused and disoriented and wrapped in bandages. 

The thunk of his pink, still bandaged skin against the dense stone had echoed in the chamber, as had his choked gasp of pain, squeezing his eyes shut. The talking had ceased then—the low rumble trailed to cold silence as he cradled his arm to his chest, twisted there uselessly. It could not have taken him more than a few seconds to reign himself in, yet when he had slowed the shallow, uneven cut of his breathing and opened his eyes, they were staring at him. 

They were old faces, hair greyed and skin wrinkling, speckled with years of tan and age, the same eyes that had pierced into him when Denethor still lived and he had been young. Trembling with rain or cold after night-rides from Ithilien to deliver reports which were demanded in person, and as they lighted on him now he burned, a limp sick thing, which settled over his skin and weighted down.

They looked at him, but they did not look at his face, did not bore the way they once had when he was young. Did not stare unflinching into grey eyes the way those lords so often did, hard and unyielding. They stared instead at the pitted, twisted surface of his skin, the sick landscape of ruin which twisted it’s way up from his neck and jaw bone, and their eyes did not falter but fell there a dense, stony weight, yet it did not leech warmth as stone so often did. He had stood on shaky legs as they watched him, silent still, and he had bowed once and skittered away like a scared foal whose legs could barely hold him, stomach churning.

That had been weeks ago, and Faramir had taken great pains to never forget the uselessness of his hand, tucked always in his sling. He would also sit near the head of the table on the side closest to the door, so that his ruined face might be angled away from the other councilors. Yet now that Aragorn had returned, and Imrahil, it meant only that while the other councilors were shielded from it, it’s surface was wholly exposed to Aragorn who sat at the Table’s head, and Imrahil, who sat across from Faramir. 

He signed as he took the sling from his desk and lifted it, one-handed and awkward over his head. The inside was layered with softer pads of fabric, and he laid his arm in carefully and wrapped his crooked fingers in the edges of the sling. 

He could not stand it, the sadness on his uncle’s face when Faramir turned his head towards the far end of the room, and his scars caught the edges of the light. Yet he also could not stand the faces of his father’s old councilmen, their cold impassivity which reminded him only of reptilian eyes, alighted on prey. 

The only one who seemed not changed was Aragorn himself. He did not seem to register even any difference at all—whether the ruined side was turned towards him or not. And yet Faramir had not known Aragorn before—had met him only when his skin burned and burned in the throes of those deep nightmares. Had his skin been blackened then, too, even in the world of his dreams? Had Aragorn seen it, the unmarred surface of his skin, tanned and freckled from long days under the sun? 

He did not know what he felt the, only that it was an unpleasant feeling, only that he would give anything to stay in his rooms, tucked away in some dark corner where the only one who would have to look at his face was himself. So that he would not have to feel the sting of inadequacy, the smothering weight of pity, the growing burn of the sun on his face. Yet the thought of abandoning his duty was worse, even, than any pains he now felt, any shame from that day in the council chambers.

So it was that Faramir schooled his features, breathed deeply, and made his way to the council rooms.


	2. The Confrontation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> None of the things that happened in this chapter were supposed to happen but it just ran away with me. It was supposed to be half as long but I just could not conceivably cut it without ruining the emotional build-up. I am not super happy with it, but I am also not unhappy with it. I am sure my fellow creative types understand :)
> 
> The next update should take a bit longer as what was meant to be chapter three became part of this one.

The council chamber was chilled that morning with the lingering cold snaps of a just-beginning spring. In the rays of sunlight that shone through the windows, particles of dew danced and clung, too chilly to be banished by the dawn. Faramir’s bones ached—a deep, wringing feeling that settled on the surface of his flesh and crept deep, and he found himself unable to breathe deeply or concentrate for the pain. Across from him Imrahil’s voice droned, still craggy and deep from sleep, his face was pale and lined, his eyes drooped with fatigue. 

It was very early for all of them to be meeting like this, and yet it was the only time they could meet. There were things that needed doing; reconstruction, rationing, coordination of the wounded and aid for those who would never truly recover or wield a sword again. They met early so that later they could survey the work crews, draw up plans and visit the wounded, yet still the work seemed unending. 

Today they discussed what was to be done with the swelling number of refugees; residents from sacked villages and towns, and the residents who were returning from Minas Tirith’s evacuation to find their homes either destroyed or being used to house other displaced. There seemed to be no room for them at all, and yet to turn away their own was simply not an option. 

Faramir shuffled through the stack of reports in front of him, and as the talking continued his ears rang. Every time he raised his eyes from the table he could see some of the councilors hastily turn their heads away, as though they had been watching him. Though he knew they could not see his face from here he hastily tilted his head forward so that his hair would hang down, and did his best to fight the flushing of his cheeks. The only ones who did not sneak glances at him were Aragorn and Imrahil, for how absorbed they were in the issue at hand, and Faramir was silently thankful.

At the head of the table, Aragorn cleared his throat and Imrahil paused in his report, nodding politely.

“Is there nothing that can be done to repair the old homes in the lower circle, to house some of the displaced there?” Aragorn asked, and Imrahil shook his head. 

“I’m sorry sir, but the streets are not yet safe. We’ve cleared the debris we can, but there are not so many of the able-bodied left.”

“The outer fiefdoms cannot continue to take the strain of so many-”

Faramir tried hard to focus, yet the deep ache of his shoulder and arm, chest and face cut through the tenure of his thoughts, and he found himself rubbing at his brow, pinched and pale. His chest felt thick and heavy, as though each rise and draw of air was done through molasses, and he wanted nothing more than to crawl back to his bed in the dark, to sink beneath the covers and pretend he would never have to rise again. He thought then of the wounded—those who had lost eyes and leg and arm, and felt his guilt deep in his stomach, a twisting, nauseous thing. 

“Faramir,” Imrahil asked, leaning forward, “does something trouble you?”

“What?” he asked, and when he looked up he saw the eyes fixed on him, as though waiting. “I’m sorry. What was the question?” 

He could not stop his cheeks heating now as Aragorn squinted at him, though he was not sure the ruined flesh could flush or blush or do much of anything besides hurt. 

“I asked what you think might be done with these refugees,” Aragorn said gently, leaning over the table and crossing his arms. He looked squarely at Faramir, yet Faramir’s own gaze slid back to the table. Now he had the unfortunate position of attempting to answer a question when he had not heard half the information, and he dug his free hand into the twisted flesh in his sling, breathing through the burning. 

“Many of the buildings on the lower levels are still serviceable,” he ventured cautiously, and after a long moment had passed, “if not blocked by debris. I think perhaps we might ask Lord Éomer to lend some of his more recovered riders to help move the rubble, as well as enlist the aid of any horses that are left.”

Almost at once a counselor—Lord Calmacil—scoffed and began to shout in outrage.

“But that is absurd! To ask Lord Éomer to lend aid yet again would be an insult, and his men already help to clear the bodies on the Pelennor!” 

Calmacil was an older man, who had been serving on the council since before Faramir could walk. He had been respected, though he and Denethor had butted heads often, they would still take refreshment together after meetings, spending long hours locked away in Denethor’s study. Faramir had always found him a cold and austere man, quick to anger and eager to censure. Yet still, Calmacil was influential, and despite how difficult he had been in recent weeks, how resistant he was to change, he had a breadth of knowledge and experience few others had. 

Faramir could not stop his flinch at the other man’s outrage, though it was not the first time he was on the receiving end of Calmacil’s anger. Aragorn did not look startled but rather cross. Aragorn opened his mouth to speak but Faramir steeled himself quickly, forcing himself to breathe deeply and meet Calmacil’s gaze.

“Yes, but is not the housing of our displaced the more pressing matter?” Faramir said, and his voice remained steady. “Those bodies will still be there in a day, and we have the advantage of cool nights and days to keep them from becoming too much of a hazard. We have already promised Lord Éomer space for his men, but I’m sure the prospect of less crowded lodgings will hasten any desire to aid us. I could speak to him personally—I am sure he would be pleased to help in any way he can.” 

Lord Calmacil’s face went red, his eyes narrowing. He was not so used to being disagreed with, and so publicly. The room was filled with the low mutter of the other councilors whispering to each other, all eyes on Calmacil, yet when he opened his mouth to rebuttal Aragorn stayed any activity in the room by holding up one hand. 

“If the Lord Steward believes Lord Éomer will not be too overburdened by the request then I would trust his judgment. There are more pressing matters to attend to,” Aragorn finished, nodding at Imrahil who shuffled to the next sheaf of papers.

Lord Calmacil did not look pleased, yet the color faded slowly from his face as Imrahil talked, until he looked once again like any other around the chamber, though his eyes flitted occasionally to Faramir, and lingered over the left side of his face. 

It was not long before Aragorn dismissed them, and Faramir lingered near his seat as the other filed out as he often did, waiting for the crowd of murmuring councilors to disperse. Aragorn and Imrahil remained at the table, still discussing the current plans to rebuild, and so Faramir slipped into the hallway early, so that they might not ask him to join them. Yet as he rounded the corner there was Calmacil leaning against the wall, the light streaming from the windows casting deepening shadows over his lined face. Calmacil did not speak as their eyes met, choosing instead to stare into Faramir’s face, and the steward found himself slowing to a stop, shifting uncomfortably. 

Faramir sighed internally. He did not want to speak to Calmacil but thought it best to deal with ruffled feathers before they had a chance to become something more. He cleared his throat and inclined his head slightly. 

“Lord Calmacil,” he said, “I hope you understand that I speak only from necessity and that you will not hold my suggestions in court personally.” 

Calmacil did not respond right away. Instead, his eyes raked over the ruined side of Faramir’s face, slipping over it like oil over water, before his gaze slid past him, to the windows that looked over the white city.

“It is far more than your suggestions which insult me, Faramir,” the older man said, kicking off the wall. His voice was quiet and calm, but then he leaned forward, his warm, sour breath puffing against Faramir’s skin. “You think it appropriate to entreat foreign dignitaries as you do?” 

Faramir’s eyes widened and he took a step back. 

“I beg your pardon?” he asked, yet Calmacil took another step forward. 

“Your condition, boy. It is not appropriate.” Calmacil looked around him once, and seeing the hall emptying seemed to bolden, for he leaned in further, and wrapped one hand in Faramir’s tunic, holding him in place as though he were nothing but a small child, caught doing something he ought not to have done. The fabric wrenched and pulled at his slid roughly against his wounded arm and Faramir stumbled. He felt a tremor run through him, could feel the pound of his heart in the veins of his neck and arms. He remembered his father, the curl of yellow teeth, the downward slant of a brow, the slide of his words like skin over broken glass, and fire fire fire.

“Your father would have known what to do with you,” Calmacil whispered into the curl of his deformed ear, “tucked you away in some dark place, never to be looked upon again.”

Faramir could not breathe for a long moment. He felt himself choking, could see only his own face, reflecting in the yellowed white of the other man’s eyes—could see his own face as it appeared when he had first awoken, red and angry, weeping and peeling. Could see the eye that would never close correctly again, the ear that would never uncurl, the useless limb that hung always limply at his side, a limb that would never again wield a sword, never again draw a bow, fletch an arrow, delight in the loamy Ithilien soil. It could feel only pain, only heat and burning sting, every too-cold brush of air, every chill and bump and drag of fabric. 

And he wondered then if it would not have been better for the limb to be gone entirely, wished desperately that instead of trying to burn the pair of them his father had grabbed instead a sword and simply lopped it off, run him through. Yet still, most of anything, he wished that the pair of them were still alive, and as they had been years ago.

He remembered his father’s face, then. The pale cut of it, bloodless as it had been that day on the pyre, and yet it was not that day—Faramir remembered his first snow, and running through the courtyard with Boromir, tumbling and roughhousing until their fingers were numb and aching. They did not even know what a snowball was until their father showed them, because it had not snowed for many years. He remembered the three of them hurling snow and laughing and gasping with cold, until Denethor hurried them inside to warm before the fire, and he had sat with Faramir’s in his lap, little fingers wrapped in his calloused hands until the feeling returned, and even after. It was then that Faramir felt the wet brimming in his eyes, and the anger, deeper than any anger he had felt before, at Denethor and Boromir and himself. 

He took a deep breath, and when he spoke his voice shook but it did not falter—it rang cold and hard through the hall, bouncing off the stones. 

“Perhaps you forget that Denethor is no longer the steward, and that his esteemed office and all its affordances have passed to me,” he took a step back, and forcibly detached Calmacil’s hand from his tunic. “You would do well to remember that, and adjust your conduct accordingly.”

Calmacil looked stunned, his hand hanging still in the air, but then his face began to redden, and he took a step forward, loud and hard, as though he meant to strike Faramir. Then Imrahil and Aragorn were there between them as though nothing had been happening out of the ordinary at all. 

“Lord Calmacil,” Imrahil said quickly, tucking his arm around the older man and leading him away, though he shot Faramir a concerned look over his shoulder. “I was wondering if I might have your counsel on the situation at Lamedon.”

Faramir stood in the hall, watching after them and willing the flare of his anger to abate.

“Faramir,” Aragorn came to his side quickly, grabbing his upper arm, and Faramir had not realized his legs were shaking, or that he could hear a buzzing in his ears until Aragorn began to lead him across the hall to sit on the windowsill. “What did he say to you? You look rather pale.” 

Yet as Faramir sat back he realized his left side was facing Aragorn and shot quickly to his feet. He stumbled again, and Aragorn made a startled noise and followed him but the arm closest to him was now Faramir’s injured one which he could not grab. Faramir spun around and held up his hands as if to say he was fine, and Aragorn stood helplessly in the middle of the hall.

“It is nothing I cannot handle,” Faramir said, though his voice sounded weak and thready to his own ears. “The ineffective political jostlings of one my father left behind. He is to be pitied, nothing more.”

Aragorn seemed to darken then, and stood taller, as he glared down the hallway after Calmacil and seemed every inch a king. Imrahil glanced back at them once again, looking troubled, though Faramir quickly angled his face away from them as well, so that now his back was to Aragorn completely.

“Faramir,” Aragorn said, and Faramir felt his hand resting lightly on his shoulder, yet it was not but the ghost of a touch, for no pain came with it. “I care less about what troubles Camacil and more about what troubles you.” 

Faramir still did not move, but stared instead at his trembling hands and willed them to stop shaking, willed himself to appear not as close to falling apart as he felt—not in front of Aragorn. But it was then that Aragorn pulled on his shoulder, and though it was still the gentlest touch he could not help but be moved by it, for he felt no resistance left in him but the slow, heady seep of shame and exhaustion. He turned slowly till he was facing back towards the window, following the pull of Aragorn’s hand until once again they were facing, and they were so close his hair could do nothing to hide the wretched twist of his face.

His breath stuttered to a halt in his chest as Aragorn looked at him, and there was no reflection in his eyes. No hate, no shadow of grotty skin. He was framed by the light spilling in from the windows, his eyes clear, and Faramir moved to turn his face away but Aragorn brought one hand up to rest on Faramir’s chin. It was warm, and soft, and smelled of rosehips. 

“You turn from me, always,” he said, and guided Faramir face up, dragged it so that half was not wreathed in shadows, and Faramir thought Aragorn did not look real, because how could one be so beautiful and not be a mirage?

Aragorn’s other hand raised then, ghosting over the edges of his scars, brushing away the hair that had fallen there. 

“I would not have you bow your head in darkness,” Aragorn whispered, bringing their heads together till their foreheads touched. Faramir felt his stomach twist then, at the press of their skin, and squeezed his eyes shut. He had wanted Aragorn to kiss him, to press lip and tongue and devour him, so that he might never be seen again. He felt Aragorn’s breath across his face, and he knew. Knew that Calmacil had been right—that none should look on him, as wretched and twisted as he had become. 

He couldn’t draw a bow, couldn’t dress himself properly, couldn’t even speak to a counselor without his voice shaking. Couldn't look in the mirror without the sick twist in his stomach of nausea and disgust. 

Aragorn was beautiful, and kind, and everything. Faramir was Faramir. 

So it was that Faramir detached himself with shaky hands, and left. Even as Aragorn called after him, he did not stop. Faramir thought of Lord Calmacil’s word later that night, as he tossed and turned over suffocating covers. He thought of his father, and his brother, and of Aragorn, and his face burned.

He felt the hot slide of wetness on his face, and he hated himself for it. He did not sob, did not rage or yell or do much of anything, because he had learned long ago to take his sorrow and suffering and pack it away, deep and remote, to tuck it someplace far away, so that it might never come out. And if it did, when it did, to feel it only when he could stand it no more, to feel it only when he was alone, to feel it only until it could be swallowed down again, and tucked away once more.


	3. The Forge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another LONG chapter. I am so sorry there is no Aragorn in this chapter. I promise this is set up for lots of the Aragorn/Faramir comfort coming your way. I just love Imrahil so much and he gets so little attention in fandom that I always have to have an Imrahil section. He's the foxy uncle we all deserve.

Things continued in much the same way for the next week; Faramir would wake, exhausted and aching. He would attend stiff council meetings where he would avoid the gazes of Calmacil, Imrahil, and Aragorn. He would duck friendly inquiries and malicious glares, and focus instead on work. 

It seemed as if Aragorn had resigned himself to giving Faramir some degree of space—he clearly wanted to ask about Lord Calmacil but didn’t. He had even caught Aragorn pulling Imrahil back one afternoon when the older man moved to approach Faramir as he gathered his papers after a particularly long meeting; Faramir’s head had been pounding all day, and by the time they had been released for the day his eyes could barely focus for watering. He thanked Aragorn mentally but did not so much as raise his head as he hurried to his chambers. 

But Aragorn and Imrahil did not let Faramir alone completely. There was never a time where Calmacil or another of his father’s old councilors was in a room with Faramir and Imrahil or Aragorn were not also there. When Faramir worked long hours in his study, or forgot himself in the library, a meal was often left for him, though he could never remember asking the servants to bring one. Imrahil was frequently waiting for Faramir outside his quarters on council days, and he would invariably ask Faramir how he had slept, though the answer was always the same, regardless of how sleep had been.

Aragorn and Faramir still had to work together as king and steward, though Faramir tried to keep the interactions as professional as he could. It was difficult, not only because Aragorn was a warm man, with a tendency to blur the boundaries between personal and professional, but also because Faramir felt that even being in Aragorn’s presence was inappropriate. It was not only the state of his face—because that was an unfortunate reality that would never go away, and Aragorn needed the help of his steward regardless of whether or not Faramir was suited to it.

No, it was inappropriate because of the tenure of Faramir’s thoughts every time his eyes slid over Aragorn, every time Aragorn spoke, everytime Aragorn laid a feather-light touch on his back as they leaned over some paper, the way Aragorn’s eyes would seek Faramir out from across a room. The way Aragorn would come to Faramir’s mind unbidden—the clear, unclouded eyes and the smell of rosehips. 

As it was, Faramir could not gaze at Aragorn when the two were together, because then he would have to see Aragorn gazing at him, and the weight of that gaze was unbearable—it was the weight of deformity, of aching awareness of one’s own ugliness, and though that truth was never reflected in Aragorn’s eyes it did not need to be, for it was in Faramir’s own eyes every time he looked in a mirror, every time his face was reflected in the washbasin or the ruddy surface of a dirty window.

Faramir kept his feelings to himself. Work went on. Éomer had been more than happy to assist in the clearing of the rubble, and all it had cost was a rather enthusiastic (and painful) clap on the back and a promise to have a drink together. Faramir supposed the prospect of less crowded housing was motivation enough for Éomer.

As it was, however, with the volume of work required and the constant movement of Faramir between archives and libraries and offices, Imrahil and Aragorn could not always ensure he was not left alone with another councilor, and Faramir was not the type to halt his work just because he was uncomfortable. Truth be told, Faramir was uncomfortable most of the time since his injury, yet even before that he had been frequently uncomfortable while carrying out work in these halls—if not because of Denethor's censure then it was because of the anticipation of it. So it was that Faramir did not leave the library when Calmacil entered it, though both of them paused to look at each other before resuming their work. 

Yet Faramir found his eyes continually drawn to Calmacil. He worse deep brown today—a long tunic of velvet which went past his knees, and his stringy grey hair was unbound about his face so that it curled around his shoulders and made him look younger—more akin to how he had looked when Faramir had still been a child. Calmacil’s eyes darted up briefly and met his before darting back to the books. 

Faramir forced himself to breathe deeply when his hand shook against the page he was holding. It was preposterous to be ruffled by Calmacil simply existing, and the man truly was not doing anything other than searching the stacks. He wasn’t even looking at Faramir as much as he usually did—which was to say he was sneaking no sidelong glances as he had made a habit of during meetings. 

Instead the library was silent but for the occasional shuffle of leather against wood as books were shuffled in the stacks, and the scratch of Faramir’s quill against paper. He was sorting through the figures Éomer’s captain had given him from the clearing work on the lower levels—figures concerning how much rubble was being moved, how many men were on the project, how soon buildings would be cleared, and how soon after that they could move refugees inside them. It was taking longer than it should have—longer than previous estimates had suggested. Still though, figures and estimates could rarely be reconciled perfectly with the real thing, and they had spared as many of their own men as they could to assist the Rohirrim, so all they could do was being done. It was a matter of waiting. 

He set himself deeply back in his work, and it did not take long for him to regain his focus. Indeed, so focused was Faramir on sorting out the figures that he did not notice Calmacil had disappeared from the stacks until the bench Faramir was on jolted, and then Calmacil was sitting beside him. 

The man did not look at Faramir—at least not at first. His gaze was fixed solely on the wide grain of the table, as though he were waiting. There was wax embedded there, from hundreds of candles over an equal number of years—from scholars and researchers and Faramir himself. From when he had been younger and had hours to waste away in the library, burning candles till the tunneled walls could no longer support their own weight and they had collapsed, spilling the wax over the edges of the holder to soak across wood. 

Now though the oil lamps burned long, for the libraries were in more use than they ever were before. Faramir was tense beside Calmacil, though he did not show it, hands resting on the parchment before him, ink-stained and dotted from holding a quill for long hours. It would not be polite to ignore Calmacil, however, so Faramir bowed his head after a moment had gone and the councilor had not acknowledged him. 

“Lord Calmacil,” Faramir said, “I hope you are well.”

Calmacil did not look over at him, and remained straight-backed on the chair, staring now into the stacks. 

“I am.” He replied, and his voice too was tight and clipped. It was silent again. 

Faramir did not know what to say. Surely the man had sat down here for a reason, yet he seemed so put out to be doing so. Faramir wasn’t sure that forcing him into conversation was a good idea, nevermind the fact that he did not want to converse with the older man, and would have packed up and left had it not seemed like a surrender. But he was saved from making any kind of decision when Calmacil spoke again. 

“And you,” the man said. “You are well?”

“Yes,” Faramir replied. 

The room was quiet again but for the nearly imperceptible sound of the lanterns guttering. 

“You do not understand what you are getting into,” Calmacil said suddenly, and it was then he turned to look at Faramir, his eyes sharper than they had been before, his brow heavy. 

“My lord?”

“The reconstruction—the first level, I would have done what is best for Gondor, nothing more,” Calmacil said, turning away, and Faramir’s confusion deepened. Was this an attempt at an apology? 

“I would also have done what is best for her,” Faramir said carefully and at length. “That is why I enlisted Éomer’s help. He does not begrudge us the request, and I assure you-”

“No, you do not understand!” Calmacil said, and he seemed very agitated now, reaching up to rub at his curled hair. But then his eyes fell on Faramir’s papers, and his entire face seemed to change, the lines growing darker as his skin paled then reddened. He looked the same as he had looked the night he had accosted Faramir in the hall, and while he felt his blood quicked, Faramir was too shocked by the sudden change to do much of anything, for he had never been one quick to violence and though Calmacil was unpredictable, Faramir would not disgrace their offices by daring to suppose violence where there ought not to have been any. 

“Help me understand,” Faramir said quickly, but Calmacil growled as he turned towards him, and as his eye’s caught the lamplight they seemed wild—the thin, hazy sheen of madness that had graced his own father’s eyes near the end. Calmacil leaned in and grabbed the front of Faramir’s tunic, and Faramir’s own hand came up to wrap around the wrinkled wrist.

“Does he touch them, I wonder?” Calmacil asked, eyes darting over Faramir’s scars. Faramir did not slide back on the bench though he wanted to, forcing his spine straight, daring to meet Calmacil’s gaze as it roved over him, a wash of heat. 

Faramir felt himself tremble as Calmacil held his hand out, flat next to Faramir’s face and hovered it there. The two held each other’s gaze, and Faramir did not dare blink, did not dare look away. It did not matter—when Faramir made no move, Calmacil brought his hand down and slid it across the ruined skin. Calmacil’s nails caught in the uneven flesh, and Faramir gasped in pain and jerked then. He stumbled backwards off the bench, but Calmacil was there, and as Faramir tried to move backwards again his foot caught against a stack of books and he tumbled to the floor, landing painfully on his left arm he cried out. 

It jarred through him—a stinging, reverberating ache in his shoulder and ribs and neck and arm, and he could feel the sting of bile in his throat as he gagged for the pain. Calmacil followed himself down, leaning over Faramir as he struggled to catch his breath. He reached again for Faramir’s face, and when Faramir turned away Calmacil’s skin grew redder, and with his other hand he grabbed Faramir’s hair and wrenched him forward so hard Faramir’s teeth clacked and he bit his tongue. 

“Does he touch them when he has you?” Calmacil hissed, pressing his hand against the skin at the same moment he shook Faramir’s head back and forth. “Or does he cover them up so that he never has to look upon it? Does he put a sheet over your head, a sack?”

Faramir choked as he struggled to breathe beneath Calmacil’s weight. The pounding of his heart was like a drum beat, the same roar in his ears as it had been before any battle. Only now there was not a battle—there had not even been a fight before Calmacil had him, head spinning and wracked with pain. Calmacil pulled on his hair harder, jerking to one side so that the scars were exposed to the light. 

“Who?” Faramir gasped, and then Calmacil laughed, and it was a wild laugh, high-pitched laugh, but then the man was leaning down again, pushing until their noses brushed. 

“No, he doesn’t take you, does he? Not when he can hardly stand to look at you,” he hissed, and when he talked small drops of warm spit landed on Faramir’s skin. “But you wish he would take you.”

“Who?” Faramir asked again, though he already knew, and it came out high and thready and so much like a sob. His legs kicked out against the stones and met nothing and he did sob then—but it was a dry sob that coated his lips with the blood from his bleeding tongue, and his eyes watered at the sting and he hated himself, the same way he had hated himself as a child when he could not stop the tears. He stopped kicking then, stopped fighting the hard jerk of his head from side to side and simply wheezed, limp on the floor, his arm throbbing with each breath of air. 

“It’s true, isn’t it? And I could tell everyone. I could make you understand,” Calmacil said, and he did not jerk Faramir’s hair this time, but ran one finger over his jaw. 

“No one would believe you,” Faramir wheezed, even though he knew it did not matter. Calmacil smirked, his teeth shining and yellowed in the light. 

“But could you handle the embarrassment?” he asked. “You know what I want,” and Faramir did know, just as well as he knew what was left unsaid; you will not speak of this. And he felt the shame, twisting up worse than any nausea had, and his face went slack, and he stared past Calmacil at the ceiling. Calmacil seemed satisfied, for he let go of Faramir’s hair with a shove and pushed himself up. Faramir’s head smacked painfully against the stones and his vision seemed to waiver, but he did not cry out now. 

Calmacil spat once then leaned over the wax-covered table. There was a rustling sound, like paper being shuffled, and then he left. 

Faramir laid on the floor for a long while after, his mind drifting. Calmcail wanted to blackmail him. He supposed, after a long moment, that he would have to resign. And it was then that Faramir felt something very particular, like a snapping, and his eyes burned, and his throat felt once again like he was choking, and it was then that he realized he was crying. He curled on the floor of the library, one arm almost immobile with pain, the other curled up over the ruined side of his face so that no one might see it, and he sobbed, deep and gagging, and he thought that he was not the man he had once been, and perhaps had never been that man at all.

He felt crippled beneath himself, until he was not sure why it mattered who he was. And It was not a question the old Faramir would have asked—because that Faramir would have given anything for the city he loved, and the people within it, at any cost to himself. And now that that cost had been paid, his family and his body destroyed, he could not pity the loss, because to do so would be to elevate himself to such a level where the loss was not as great as the loss of himself. It was not a loss to be pitied—the price had been worth it, to see peace, to see an end to war. Yet Faramir did not feel at peace. He felt like a boat with no bottom, somehow halved while still remaining whole, pitted and hollow. He had offered everything to the war; to his city and its people, yet still more had been taken, and the loss had been such that he could not even recognize that thing taken but for the ache of its absence.

He must never see Aragorn again. Aragorn, who was kind and understanding, yet who would never understand this—this transgression, a staining on Aragorn’s body everytime Faramir looked at him, which would drag them both down if something was not done. 

He could not move his left arm, he realized then, as he struggled to his feet. His head felt thick, and he could barely turn it for the screaming of his neck muscles. Yet he had marched with worse injuries than this, so he wiped the blood and tears from his face, waited for the splotches on his skin to fade, and left the library. He would write his resignation and deliver it tonight, before more damage could be done. 

——-

Imrahil was walking back to his quarters from a day of filling out reports when he nearly ran into his nephew. 

“Faramir!” Imrahil exclaimed, but Faramir ignored him, walking very slowly and stiffly, as if each step pained him. Faramir looked so pale that Imrahil was not sure how he was walking at all, and his eyes were glassy an distant, a thin sheen of sweat covering his visible skin. 

“Are you well?” Imrahil asked, walking beside him.

“I am afraid I am simply feeling a bit ill, uncle,” Faramir said, but he felt very faint, and clearly it must have shown on his face, because Imrahil did not hesitate to wrap a hand around his upper arm. Only, even so small a movement jolted the opposing shoulder, and Faramir could not help the strained gasp that escaped his mouth, as his eyes closed and his face screwed up in pain. 

Imrahil released him immediately as if burned, but then Faramir listed to one side, so Imrahil grabbed him lightly about the waist, leading him to a bench on the edge of the hallway. 

Faramir did not resist. He could feel his arm spasming, cramping, and tingling, stabbing from his fingertips to his shoulder and across his chest. He gasped and curled it against his chest, bending forward on the bench to breathe through the clamping nausea clawing its way up his throat. He felt dizzy, and the world seemed to narrow, any awareness he had ebbing away to the feel of ruined muscle as he struggled to maintain his composure.

“What is it,” Imrahil asked, hovering behind him on the bench but not yet touching him. “Are you injured? Is it your arm?” and Faramir shook his head though it was his arm, for he did not trust that he could form coherent sentences. This did not serve to calm Imrahil, who flittered now nervously in front of the bench—he desired desperately to check Faramir himself, to ensure there was no life-threatening injury, and that it really was just some rush of sickness, yet he also was not willing to cause more pain. So he clenched his hands tightly, nails digging into skin, for he did not otherwise trust that he would not reach out again. Yet Faramir did not seem to be improving, so Imrahil came to a decision—he unclenched his hands and ran them, shaking, through damp hair. 

“I am getting a healer,” Imrahil said, his voice tight and strained. He spun around and began to leave, but then Faramir did move, lurched forward, tangling his fingers in the edge of Imrahil’s sleeve. The older man jolted to a stop in the middle of the hall. 

“No, please don’t,” Faramir whispered, and Imrahil did not move for a long moment, gazing down the hallway. His spine was very straight, and he warred with himself, but then he looked down at Faramir’s hand twisted in the pale Fabric of his sleeve. He breathed out, his eyes softening, though he still looked a tad frenzied, and he wrapped Faramir’s hand on his own and detached it, then slid to his knees before Faramir, reaching up feel the side of his face. 

It was so difficult for him to deny his nephew anything. 

Imrahil’s eyes flickered then to the scars on the opposite side, obscured still by Faramir’s hair. He seemed to come to a kind of resolution, for his eyes seemed harder yet no less warm, as he gently ran his thumb over his nephew’s cheekbone.

“I will be alright,” Faramir said then, but his voice cracked, and it was so quiet Imrahil almost missed it. His nephew’s eyes darted upward and met his for a moment before skittering away again, cloudy with pain, and Imrahil ran one hand down Faramir’s cheek to grasp the back of his neck loosely. 

“When have you said that and meant it?” Imrahil whispered back, and Faramir did look up then, and when he met his Uncle’s eyes Faramir saw sadness there, and a brief flicker of hurt, but then it was gone, shuttered behind concern and guilt and melancholy. 

Imrahil knew he had not been a good uncle. He had not been there as often as Faramir had needed him, both when he was a boy and when he had grown into a man. Had not been there Boromir died, and had not been there when Faramir had woken in the healing houses, alone. He had gone to the black gates, as had been his duty. Yet men had many duties, and in fulfilling one he had failed in another. War had separated them, had stretched thin and even broken the bonds of family, until the word and it’s meanings had been like over-worked metal, shapeless and frail. 

Imrahil had maintained distance—had given Faramir the space he thought he needed, had toiled in the belief that men must face their own demons. In reality, Imrahil had not known what to do, how to help. He had seen men maimed so often—much of his adult life had been formatted by loss, yet he had always been detached if not compassionate—the commander, the leader, the prince. At the end of the day, men who could not fight went home to grieve in private; Their struggles were invisible to Imrahil. 

He had been simultaneously alienating and smothering. Distant in the way he tried to act as if nothing had changed, that his nephew was the same as he always had been, and smothering in the way he could not forget it—could not forget that Faramir would never be the same again, not only in the way war had marked him psychically, but in the things war had taken from him, from the both of them. Aragorn had been right to tell Imrahil to give Faramir space, for the problem had always been with Imrahil, never Faramir, because how could Faramir do anything but shoulder his burden alone when, at every turn, he had been alone?

Overworked metal could not be saved—a broken sword could be reforged, but it would never truly be the same. Yet still, even if that failure of duty was never forgiven, never healed, Imrahil would not fail again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have NO idea how metalworking works but I tried


	4. The Plot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daaaaaa, here it is! This was by far the hardest chapter to write. I think one or two more chapters should do it, but I have been long-winded lately. Thanks so much for sticking with it, and thanks so much to all my wonderful reviewers <3
> 
> Also, I just realized that all of my italics are getting deleted when I post chapters, so I'll have to fix that at some point ;~;

Faramir sat in the wingback chair before the fire in his quarters, holding his arching arm. He was still pale and shaky—his muscles felt tighter than they had ever been before, and he breathed through his nose harshly as they cramped. He was waiting—Imrahil had left to fetch a basin of warm water and towels to lay over the pained areas, in the hope that the heat might leech there and sap away the tenseness. 

Faramir knew he would have to write his resignation letter as soon as possible, before Calmacil had a chance to enact his blackmail. He had wanted Eomer’s men removed from the clearing project, of that Faramir was sure, though he did not know why. It was such a peculiar thing to risk everything over—to blackmail the steward, to risk treason and death. 

And yet, stranger still—Calmacil had seemed not aggressive when he had first entered the library and sat beside Faramir, though the man had quickly given to agitation—almost desperation! Calmacil was not a kind man, not warm or calm, and yet he had always been an exacting man, if not prone to outbursts. Faramir had never known him to act so….erratically. It did not make sense. None of it had made any sense. 

And then Calmacil’s other words came to him. Does he touch them when he has you, or does he cover them up? 

Faramir strode suddenly to his feet, biting his lip against the burn of pain. The room tilted, the back of his head throbbing where the hair had been pulled, where it had struck the floor. He waited, breathing sharply until his vision had evened somewhat, though it still felt as if the floor had been oddly warped as he took a step forward to hunch against the fireplace.

He tried to focus on that—the tight grinding ache and disorienting swell, yet still Calmacil’s words found him. 

No, he doesn’t take you, does he? Not when he can hardly stand to look at you.

Faramir ground the heel of one hand into his eyes. He knew it was not true—not the last part, anyway. Because out of anyone Aragorn had been the one to look at him no differently than he looked at others. Only that was not so true either, because Aragorn had seemed always to look at Faramir the way one looked at a friend. It was not the gaze of a king, but the gaze of a man, and he had found himself subsumed by that gaze every time it swept over him, so brilliant he had no choice but to avert his own eyes less he be swept away by false hope. Aragorn’s gaze had been always one of open kindness.

And yet. 

Faramir raised one shaking hand to his face, and the flesh that still stung from Calmacil’s hand. He felt very ill then, and moved slowly back to his chair. He had only one arm with which to lower himself down, and so he half-collapsed into it, his shaking legs too weak to support himself. 

Calmacil had known. Had seen some mark of it, written upon his skin, the mark of a vile corruption darker there than any scar. Aragorn had been a friend to Faramir. How had Faramir betrayed that friendship but to sully it behind his own desire, to drag his king into such ruin by association?

The door behind him creaked open as Imrahil came back into the room. He knelt in front of Faramir, balancing a steaming basin in one arm and a stack of towels in another. 

“I hope this will do,” Imrahil said. “I had worried it would be too hot, then too cold.” 

Faramir moved to loosen the ties of his tunic but he had only one useful hand, and even that one shook so that the woven threads slipped ceaselessly from his finger. Imrahil shooed his hands away and took the laces in his own fingers—long and thin like Faramir’s but also crooked and spotted with age from long hours in the sun. 

The ties came undone and Faramir looked away, back towards the window. He knew the moment that skin on his chest was exposed, for Imrahil’s fingers stilled a moment, and he breathed in rather harshly before he seemed to come back to himself and finish with the lacings. 

Imrahil dipped one towel in the steaming basin, soaking it in the water until it was sodden and hot. Faramir sat up straighter, pulling his tunic over one shoulder as Imrahil lay the towel there, and the relief was immediate. The warmth burned for but a moment, but then it seeped deep and spread, and he could feel the minute loosening of the muscles as he relaxed back into the chair, breathing deeply. 

Imrahil laughed airily and lay a hand on Faramir’s before moving to soak another towel for his arm, and though the aching pain still remained, Faramir felt a good deal improved than he had in the hallways. When he caught his uncle's eyes there in the firelight they did not linger long over the reddened flesh but instead sparkled with fondness and care. 

And yet, despite it all, Faramir knew he needed to be alone. He could not let anyone know about the letter until it was done, for surely Aragorn or Imrahil would try to stop him. How much easier it would be, to simply disappear until the time they could understand, could see how much better things were in his absence. But he was not so honorless as to slip away in the middle of the night like a criminal. He would have to deliver the letter to Aragorn personally—to make him understand—less the king, kind as he was, languished under some false hope of Faramir ever returning to fill that role. 

It would have to be a definitive resignation, though. He could not allow himself to remain any longer than necessary when he was so compromised. A steward could not serve when another held sway over him, when such damage could be done with a single accusation. If Calmacil saw it, who else had? How long until he brought shame and ruin down around them all?

“I will be alright now uncle,” Faramir said, as Imrahil sat back on his knees, looking doubtful. “I fear I simply have been over-tired with work. A long rest would do me good.” And that, at least Imrahil seemed to agree on, for he let out a long breath and nodded, and the lines seemed to lessen in his face. 

Imrahil pressed one hand against the skin of Faramir’s face, and when he found no fever he nodded and stood.

“I will tell Aragorn you have taken ill, and to not expect you at council tomorrow.” Then, when he saw the grimace pass over Faramir’s features he smiled and added; “He is an understanding man. I would not dwell on it. I will check on you in the morning.”

Faramir, however, did not rest after Imrahil had left. He made his way shakily to the small desk in the corner of the room and began to write his letter. Yet, each time he brought his pen to the page he found he did not know what to say, so that before long he had a pile of discarded, half-finished letters and nothing else but an aching head. He resigned himself to finishing the letter in the morning, when perhaps his aches had been lessened by the comfort of sleep. 

As he climbed into bed, Faramir’s thoughts felt clouded and slow, as though they came to him from a great distance away. And though he was pained, sleep came quickly—yet it was but a fitful half-sleep, where one hovered always half in wakefulness, and dreams seemed to creep and mix with waking reality. 

——

When Faramir woke he did not feel better. Rather, his head ached painfully, and when he sat up the world swam. Were it not for the chamberpot beneath his bed he would have retched on the floor. 

It took a long moment for his stomach to settle, and when he did finally raise himself to sitting he was achy and hot. His arm felt once again the stab of pins and needles, and when he tried to move it from his side nothing happened. It hung limp there, his muscles ignoring his commands. The nausea came back again, and as he leaned over, retching, he heard the door open, but he could not focus on much else for the cramps in his stomach until he felt someone taking the basin from his hands. 

His head felt very heavy. When his eyes once again focused he saw Imrahil before him, and if the lines in his face had lessened the night before they were back now, deeper than they had been. He ran a hand over Faramir’s brow to check for fever, yet Faramir felt a wetness on his face then, and he saw Imrahil’s eyes widen.

“Faramir, you are bleeding,” he whispered, and when Faramir lifted a hand to his nose he felt warm damp, and when he pulled it away blood coated the tips of his fingers. 

“I am fetching a healer,” Imrahil said. This time Faramir knew he would see no arguments, and truly Faramir was not even sure he could argue, as wracked with nausea as he was. Yet when Imrahil returned he did not bring a healer. Rather, Aragorn followed in his wake, still clad in his nightclothes with his hair twisted messily about his face, and when Faramir saw him his face flushed, and his stomach felt at once more unsettled than it had. 

Aragorn, however, seemed to feel no such embarrassment at the impropriety, and in a moment he appeared to lose whatever dregs of sleepiness had clung still to him when he saw Faramir. He was kneeling before the bed in but a moment, reaching up to run his hands around the back of Faramir's head to check for injury, and if he saw Faramir flinch he did not mention it. 

“My lord-?” Faramir began, but clamped his mouth shut again and bowed his head as his stomach roiled. 

“You said he seemed fine last night?” Aragorn asked. Imrahil nodded.

“He did. He said he was simply tired, and he had no fever.”

Faramir did not feel well enough to protest at any of it, fighting the urge to vomit again, though he felt the sting of mortification. Aragorn however did not acknowledge any awkwardness—rather he seemed wholly focused on Faramir, eyes narrowed in concentration and worry. Faramir flinched again when Aragorn’s fingers brushed against the back of his head, for it stung awfully, and when Aragorn pulled his hand away there was red hair tangled between his fingers. 

Imrahil’s eyes widened, and Aragorn looked closely at Faramir’s face, and must have seen there the cloudiness in his eyes, for he did not yet speak to him, but smoothed the hair soothingly across his brow. There was dried blood crusted against the copper strands, and Aragorn titled Faramir’s head down lightly, so that the back of his head faced the ceiling, as he combed through the hair once more, and Faramir hissed again, drawing in another breath. Aragorn shushed him gently, laying a hand over the back of his skull, and Faramir felt the pain lessen some as Aragorn muttered, too-low to understand.

“Faramir,” Imrahil began, but it appeared he once again was at a loss for words—Faramir had claimed simple illness, yet simple illness it had not been.

“There is a lump here,” Aragorn said, “and the skin is very bruised, and some of the hair has been ripped free.” Aragorn looked very angry, and his voice was low and tight—the same voice he used in the council when he was trying hard to not let his emotions show. He tilted Faramir’s head up again, so that he might look better in his eyes to determine if he really were concussed, but the movement brought nausea back again, and soon Faramir was struggling to breathe through more retches and stomach cramps. 

He groaned miserably once the cramping had subsided, yet now his head ached and pounded more than it had, so he closed his eyes tight and sat hunched over the bed. He did not realize that he had come to rest against Aragorn until the older man was passing him carefully to the arms of his uncle on his opposite side. He still could not find it in himself to resist, and he was not sure he could remain sitting for the ache of his muscles without assistance. 

His uncle held him gently, taking care to see that Faramir was putting no weight on his left side or the back of his skull. Imrahil’s arms were loose around him, Faramir reclined against his chest, and he could smell the familiar salty tang of loam and cedar. Faramir had never been sure if his uncle truly smelled of the sea, or if in his youth the association had been wrought so strongly on Dol Amroth beaches between those things and his uncle that they were ever inseparable in his mind, and forever his nose would be tricked by the sight of him to recall those things the same way a man in the desert recalled the ocean well enough to taste water among the sand. 

Before long the mattress dipped again, and now Faramir smelled other things—turmeric and ginger and saffron, and he felt a hand in his own, and warm porcelain, and when he opened his eyes Aragorn was pressing a steaming mug into his hand, though he did not let go when Faramir’s fingers wrapped about it. Rather Aragorn layered his own hands over Faramir’s, and they were warm and calloused as he helped to lead the tea to Faramir’s lips. Faramir felt his face grow hot, and could not find it in himself to maintain eye contact, though Aragorn was looking intently at him, as though he could uncover some mystery there through sight alone.

The tea was so vile that it quickly overrode any shyness Faramir felt. Though he had drunk many vile concoctions in his time with the rangers he had to sip slowly to keep it from coming back up, but the nausea lessened some then, and the pounding in his head reduced, so that he felt for the first time since waking up some degree of clarity, though he still ached and his stomach was sore from so much cramping. 

Once the tea was drained Aragorn leaned forward, reaching out to lay a land on his brow, and smooth the damp hair there away from his face.

“How do you feel?” Aragorn asked as Faramir squinted at him. His eyes seemed to ache a bit with the dawn light, but the stinging pound had lessened from unbearable to simply uncomfortable.

“I am alright,” Faramir said, and behind him he could feel and hear his uncle scoff. 

“It is a rather nasty wound,” Aragorn said simply. 

“His arm-” Imrahil said. “He could not move it well yesterday, and I could scarce touch him without causing pain.”

“It isn’t—that is not so unnatural,” Faramir protested, but rather than assuaging any concern that might have been felt that seemed only to deepen it, for then Aragorn was leaning forward to examine his arm. The lacings of his tunic were still loose from yesterday so the scared shoulder was exposed, but Faramir inhaled suddenly and jolted backward. Only, there wasn’t anywhere to go, and he ended up knocking that same shoulder against Imrahil’s chest so that it seized up again, and he had to bend over the mattress again and breath through his nose for the pain. 

“It is fine, really, I—you shouldn’t look at it.” Faramir said, still breathless. “It is not proper.”

Imrahil’s hand tightened on his waist, and Aragorn looked very sad.

“Do you forget who healed you when you were borne here from the battlefields? From the pyre?” As the words left Aragorn’s mouth Faramir flinched again, and Aragorn seemed to recognize his mistake for he said nothing else, but waited on the bed until Faramir's breathing to calm once more. “Come now, Faramir. We were both soldiers, and there is no shame in old wounds. I would have you trust me, if you could.” 

Meeting Aragorn’s eyes was a mistake, for how could he refuse Aragorn anything he asked for when he looked to him, pleading. Faramir sighed and moved to scoot across the bed, but clearly neither Aragorn nor Imrahil trusted him to support himself, for he was abruptly manhandled until he came to rest against Aragorn’s chest 

“Faramir, are you not feeling nauseous again? You look a bit flushed,” Imrahil asked, peering through the curtain of hair to Faramir’s face. Faramir quickly shook his head and ducked his uncle's hand as Aragorn pushed the tunic over his shoulder. 

The warmth of his palm left Faramir’s skin warm, though the skin could no longer flush for its scarring. Aragorn grasped his elbow in one hand and set the other on his shoulder and lifted the limb gently—as it rose Faramir clenched his jaw, and when it had scarce raised above his ribs he could not bite back the hiss of pain. He could feel the pull of the muscles stretching across his chest and shoulders, moving down to his fingertips, and it burned. Aragorn lowered the limb immediately.

“It is completely locked,” said Aragorn, “as I suspect the rest of these muscles are.” He trailed his hands up Faramir’s arm and over his collarbone and neck, prodding lightly as he went. “I will have to gather some herbs before I can see to it, and it will take some time to make the poultices required for his head.” 

“There is bruising here, too…” Aragorn said after a moment, and Faramir flinched away violently as Aragorn's fingers brushed his cheekbone, till they were separated on the bed. Imrahil watched him with wide eyes, but Aragorn’s face was a careful mask of calm, as if he was approaching a frightened animal. 

Faramir was not frightened, but could feel his heart race, tight and stuttering so that he could scare breathe easily. He wished only to be left alone, to let that hair drop forward again till the bruises could not be seen. There had not been a mark there the previous night—it must have darkened during his sleep, yet it could not be more than a faint ghost of a thing if truly Aragorn had only noticed it now, in the low dawn glow. 

“Faramir….” Aragorn said, lowering his hands down to the mattress. “What happened?”

Faramir swallowed thickly, and resisted the urge to rub at his shoulder. Imrahil did not move towards him (though he looked like he wanted to), and Faramir was grateful for that. 

“I slipped in the library,” Faramir said, “and knocked my head about one of the benches.” It sounded like a lie even to his own ears—the words stilted and slow, forced over with the thin veneer of calm. Aragorn’s eyes stayed carefully unchanged, and Faramir knew he did not believe him. 

“My friend, I am a healer,” Aragorn said. “I can read injuries as well as you can read tracks.”  
Aragorn leaned forward slowly, and his hand raised towards Faramir’s face, though it did not bring it down there on the sensitive flesh, and Faramir did not move away, though he watched the hand, wary. Instead, Aragorn brought it to smooth against the back of the steward’s head, checking to make sure it had not resumed bleeding. 

“Someone drug you about by the hair,” Aragorn said after a moment. “I would know who dare to hurt my steward thus.” His eyes did change now, colder and harder than they had been—heavy, and Faramir looked instead to the far wall, and the cracks in the stones. 

“I cannot say.” 

“For your safety?” Imrahil asked.

“For his own,” Faramir said at great length, nodding at Aragorn. The two older men glanced at each other. 

“Faramir,” Aragorn leaned forward on the bed, reaching out to lay a hand on his shoulder, “if there is plotting going on in my kingdom, I would know.”

And that was the crux of it, really. The trap of his own making—that he knew as well as Aragorn that a man like Calmacil could not run free, regardless of Faramir’s presence or not. And yet, some part of him believed, truly, that he might expose all but the most vile of details, to save his own pride and Aragorn’s good opinion of him, however unearned it was, before the end. 

He felt very cold all at once, and exposed, with his tunic hanging half off him. He shook Aragorn’s hand off, rising from the bed. He lurched dangerously at first, and Aragorn was there to grab his arm yet Faramir shrugged this off too, for the tea seemed to have lessened the weakness in his legs and the shaking in his vision, for he did not lose his footing again. 

He walked to his dresser and sat there, attempting one-handed to do up the lacings. Yet just as last night he failed, for he could not pull one end tight while the other was loose, and he had resigned himself to holding one end in his teeth when Aragorn came up behind him and began to do the lacings himself. 

Faramir would have stopped him, only he did not know what to say that would not give insult. He watched the fingers through the mirror, and the bob of still-tangled hair, and when the lacings were done Aragorn laid his hands over Faramir’s shoulder, meeting his eyes through the glass. Aragorn nodded his head at Faramir, and he knew then that Aragorn would not let the matter lie. 

“There were demands made,” Faramir said at last. “Contingent on my silence. I would not implicate you.”

“You have promised them something?” Aragorn asked and Faramir shook his head. 

“No. Never. I-...” his words came out shaky, and he dug his nails into his palm. “I have penned my resignation.”

Aragorn’s face went very pale. Across the room, Imrahil made a choking noise and rose to his feet.

“Faramir!” he said, but then immediately turned to Aragorn, and his face was white too, and his mouth opened and closed several times. “My lord, you must understand that he is not well!” he said at last, and Aragorn raised his hands in supplication, though he himself seemed just as shocked. 

“Peace, Imrahil,” Aragorn said. “I have no intention of tossing your nephew out on the street.” He turned to Faramir, and when he saw the determination in the stewards face he signed and rubbed at his brow. “Faramir, you are not resigning.”

“I would not jeopardize the kingdom,” Faramir said, rising to his feet, for it seemed to be his own turn to protest. “Once I am gone you are safe from any scandal that might be fabricated.”

“They are blackmailing you?” Aragorn asked, looking up. “Faramir, I cannot imagine you have done anything shameful enough to warrant resignation, but I would know regardless. Any past mistakes—” 

“No—” Faramir said “They were lies, nothing more. Yet even the implication, the possibility of truth could be enough to ruin you. You are a new king—if one of the first things people heard was-...” He shook his head and walked back to the bed, leaning his elbows on his knees. “They would never forget it.” 

“Faramir—Faramir.” Aragon knelt before him, and reached to lay one hand on Faramir’s knee. It was improper, a king kneeling before a steward, yet Faramir knew his king was never troubled by such things.

“If someone was threatening you, or me,” Aragorn said, “our very being together now has already implicated me. You maintain silence to protect me, but already, these agents who made these threats, they will not assume your silence when we are meeting as we are. These lies they are threatening to spread—they have shown themselves incapable of honor, and so could fabricate lies regardless of your being steward or not. Regardless of whatever role you play in this, this man is a danger to Gondor. He cannot be allowed to run free.”

It made sense. It made perfect sense, for all the information Aragorn had. Faramir could not bring himself to say it—that there was a truth that lent veracity to Calmacil’s claims. That any might look on his face and see it, written there in the pale of his skin. Faramir could still resign and tell Aragorn the truth—the danger of Faramir’s desire would be removed, and the danger of Calmacil lessened, and at least identified, should he try anything else in the future. Faramir could take that hit to his pride, that shame before his uncle and king if it meant Gondor would be safe. 

“Faramir, I would do what I can to protect you in this,” Aragorn said, and he spoke each word harshly, like one taking a vow, or some binding promise, “where I have not been able to protect you before.”

“I—” Faramir could feel the heat spreading over his face and neck, the flip of his stomach and the start of a cold sweat. “I was in the library, looking over some reports from Eomer, on the progress of the rubble clearing in the lower levels.”

“Yes,” Aragon said, “I recall it still.”

“Lord Calmacil came in,” Faramir continued. At the mention of the councilor’s name Imrahil turned sharply at the window, and a deep scowl drew down over Aragorn’s face, though it passed there for just a moment before he had schooled his features back into placidity. 

“He did not...he did not seem agitated at first but then... I am not sure what happened. He was fine one moment, and the next he was very angry.”

“Faramir….” Aragorn said, and he sounded very aggrieved, but now that the words had started he found them hard to stop, like the tumble of rock down a mountainside. 

“He accosted me. He made implications. That if I did not call Eomer off the rubble clearing, he would fabricate claims against me.”

“What kind of claims?”

“About the nature of our relationship. That you would cover—” He stopped, his voice cracking, and he gestured weakly to his face but did not continue. Faramir knew now there was no avoiding it, that too much had been said, the matter could not lie, and he had been foolish to try to conceal it all along. He did not know what would happen, but deep in his heart he felt a cold fear, that Aragorn’s eyes would harden, and that coldness would turn to consider Faramir himself. He felt the words caught in his throat, thick and sticky like tar—like long summer days in Ithilien, when the river beds had run dry and no water was to be found, and they had dug holes deep in the dirt to suck mud. 

“It is alright,” Aragorn said, and he took up Faramir’s hands now, rubbing the cold digits between his calloused palms. He waited until Faramir’s breathing had slowed, then moved his hands to grip the younger man’s shoulders. 

“What did he say about us?” Aragorn asked, and Faramir felt numb. He looked once at Aragorn’s face, and Imrahil’s, and felt his shame inside himself as a tangible thing, not sharp or cold but hot and liquid—nauseous and sick, that settled low in his stomach and made his blood whistle in his ears. 

Faramir inhaled, shaky, and he moved to pull Aragorn’s hand from his shoulder, yet Aragorn instead gripped that hand, too-tight to let go. 

“That you would have your way with me,” he said. He could hear then the slight hitch of breath, though there was no other sound, no outward sign that the words had processed at all, until Aragorn leaned forward. 

“Oh Faramir,” Aragorn whispered. Faramir’s eyes had always been so expressive, and now Aragorn could see they were wide and gleaming, there was fear there—a deep, buried fear, but all the same one barely contained, and when Aragorn moved to cup the sides of Faramir’s face he shied away, so Aragorn instead grabbed his hand once more, folding it between his own. 

From the other side of the room Imrahil slammed a palm against the stone and growled, a low, grating noise that Faramir had never heard from him before. He crossed the room to the door, and he did not stomp, but stalked noiselessly, fury writ in every crevice of his face.

“Where are you going?” Aragorn asked, standing. 

Imrahil growled and threw open the door, moving into the hallway.

“To get my sword.”

Aragorn stood helplessly for a moment, looking between the hallway and Faramir, yet Faramir grabbed his sleeve urgently, tugging him towards the bed, speaking low and quiet;

“Aragorn you must stop him. Whatever sins Calmacil has committed, to accost him so without any evidence besides my testimony would only force these same rumors that must be repressed into the light. If Calmacil is truly to be stopped, you must allow me time. Time to get to the bottom of his obsession with this project in the lower circle.” 

Aragorn looked at him for a moment, his eyes sharp and piercing before he cursed, rising to his feet and racing after Imrahil


	5. The King

In the end, Aragorn had been able to stop Imrahil, though it was not without a good deal of cursing and bodily restraining the normally placid man. 

“He has called my nephew’s honor into question!” Imrahil insisted, and had even gone so far as to remove his gloves and fling them to the floor, despite the fact that Calmacil was not there to receive the challenge. “It is only right that I duel him for the insult.”

“You are not thinking clearly my friend. You sound more like Éomer than Imrahil.” 

And Imrahil had relented, but only after hearing his nephew's wishes, and after Aragorn had made some vague threats of imprisoning him until he calmed down. As much as Aragorn found Calmacil reprehensible in every sense, as much as he too wished to throw the man in the darkest of Denethor's dungeons, he recognized the need to avoid a diplomatic incident. As usual, his steward was correct in matters of state. 

So it was that Imrahil returned to his room to calm down while Aragorn fetched the herbs to dress the wound on Faramir’s head, and the poultice for his aching muscles. It disturbed Aragorn deeply that such an interaction had been enough to drive Faramir so far as to attempt resignation, and he was not foolish enough to think it was simply a matter of Calmacil’s threats, but some wound which ran far deeper and had festered these past months. He remembered Faramir’s face that night in the corridor outside the council rooms, how shadowed it had been, darkened beneath a curtain of mussed hair, and then, when the eyes had met him—despair and sadness. 

It was a look Aragorn had grown used to seeing in the months since the war, on the few occasions that Faramir had met Aragorn’s eyes (let alone anyone else's). His steward had stuck to shadows, performing work no less diligently than he seemed always to have done, yet there was no joy in it. Instead, he looked always over one shoulder, moving quickly and silently yet with the heaviness of step of one who had never truly left the battlefield. 

As Aragorn massaged the poultice into Faramir’s shoulder and arm it was the same—his steward avoiding his eyes, looking not at some point in the distance but down. Not as one who gazed through time or space but was rather caught up in it, cloudy and distant. He dressed the head wound and prescribed sleep, and when he left the room Faramir did not look after him, yet sat still as he had been on the bed, and Aragorn was troubled as he left, resigning himself to check on the man again in a few hours. 

So it continued for the rest of that day, and part of the next; Aragorn would check in on Faramir, and see to his injuries, and always Faramir would insist that he was fine. Aragorn thought it best to let lie the matter of the resignation, and hope that Faramir’s commitment to investigate the matter with Calmacil had banished the idea from his head entirely. 

—-

Aragorn….hovered. Very often. He poked and prodded and looked at Faramir with large soulful eyes, waiting for Faramir to speak, or do something, yet at the same time, Aragorn never pushed him to do anything. Imrahil was worse, because Imrahil would force Faramir back to bed if he was working too much, while Aragorn would simply look at Faramir with those blasted eyes until he would resign himself to whatever rest Aragorn had deemed necessary. 

But the ache in his limb lessened, and soon he could raise the offending arm above his head with only some degree of pain, and the stiffness came only in the morning or at night, or with chill. It had only been two days, but his head no longer ached, though the back of his skull would still throb when he stood too quickly, and his stomach muscles were still sore. But Faramir could not remain an invalid forever—or at least, more invalid than usual. Aragorn had rescheduled the council meetings to buy them time, but they could not be put off indefinitely with the kingdom in the state it was in. 

So it was that Faramir sat in his rooms, pouring over the documents concerning the rubble clearing. He had sent a servant to fetch the documents he had left behind in the library, but as he settled back at the desk to flip through them, he noticed something was very strange; the documents were out of order, and one was missing. He flipped through them again, and then again. Yes, the report Éomer’s captain had sent was gone, as was a page of his notes concerning that same document. 

He frowned and rubbed at his brow, the ache starting back up again. He remembered hearing Calmacil shuffle the papers before he had exited the library. It seemed very possible the man had taken some, though he had no clue as to why, but he suspected therein lay some hint of the nature of Calmacil’s investment. Perhaps Éomer’s Captain had his own copy of that report, or could make up a new one. He hated to trouble the man, but the circumstances were such that required it. 

He penned a quick letter, indicating his request was urgent, and sealed it with his official seal. Then, he flagged down a passing servant in the hallway and instructed them to deliver the letter to Éomer as soon as possible. All he had to do now was wait. There were, at least, other reports he could look through—for soldiers had been working to clear the rubble before Éomer had been asked to help, even though they could not spare many. Someone had been in charge of the project, before Éomer’s captain took over, surely.

So it was that he went back to the library, though he was under strict instructions to rest. He stalled before the doors for a moment, though he was not sure why. The inside of the library seemed darker than it had ever been, even during the years of Denethor’s rule, when there was little time for books and their study, and his heart seemed to stutter and hitch in his chest, and that ache grew worse. He dug his fingers deep into the muscle. There was work to be done, so with great effort he set one foot over the threshold, then the next, until he was well into the stacks.

He found reference to the project in the minutes of a meeting from when he had first been released from the houses—those meetings did not hold strong in his memories for the poppies and willow bark the healers had given him for pain, yet it seemed the matter had only been mentioned in passing, and there was there a reference to an earlier meeting—one which Imrahil had presided over, before the armies had left for the Black Gate, when Faramir was still insensate in the Healing Houses. 

It did not take him long to find the document coinciding with that meeting, though he had to fetch that collection of minutes from the drawers in the far back of the library. He spread those out on the table and began to sort through them. They were not in sequential order as the older documents were. Rather, these seemed shoved together rather violently, and Faramir wondered if their old archivist had also been a victim of the war. It was hard to imagine the old, decrepit man as a soldier, yet far more than soldiers had been casualties of the war; there were casualties of falling stone and sickness, scarcity and fear.

It took many long minutes to find the document from the correct date, but once he had, the information was forthcoming—it had been one of the first things the council discussed. They had assigned some soldiers to various relief efforts, and questions had been made of who might oversee the efforts of the lower circle, and it was there that Faramir found what he was looking for. Calmacil had put forth his own man, a retainer named Eldan. 

The ache tightened in his arm, as he frowned at the papers, massaging his brow and mussing his hair. It was a good start certainly, a connection he had not been aware of before, yet it left more questions than it answered. It could not have been simple insult at Calmacil’s own man being replaced that caused this, so then what? Surely the help would have been appreciated, for Eldan would have known they did not have enough men for the project, that it had been slow going. Something was being hidden from him, though he did not know what. Perhaps there were reports on the situation from Eldan himself, yet he did not get to look, for a voice spoke his name suddenly from the doorway.

“My lord,” Faramir jumped, scrambling to stand and bow as Aragorn walked in. He did not look as haggard as he had the morning in Faramir’s room, for he wore a fine, dark red tunic, with gold brocade about the shoulders. Yet his hair was as mussed as Faramir’s must be, as if he too had spent countless hours pouring over some matter of state and had only just now found time to wander. 

“You are meant to be resting,” Aragorn said, yet he did not push the matter beyond that, and instead left the statement to hang in the air as he settled himself on the opposite bench. Faramir felt very foolish then, standing on formality when his king had not, so he quickly sat and bowed his head. 

“Have you found out anything?” Aragorn asked. Faramir shook his head.

“Calmacil’s own man was overseeing the efforts in the lower circle before we sent the Rohirrim. But I haven’t yet been able to discern why Calmacil was so eager to volunteer this Eldan, and why he seems to obsess over the project.”

“I will help you with it tomorrow,” Aragorn said. Faramir began to protest but Aragorn held up a hand. “I am not so busy at the moment that I cannot be of some use. I find it very dull, working alone.” 

“Sir,” Faramir inclined his head in assent. 

“Will you take dinner with me tonight?” 

Faramir felt himself flush, but before he could make up some excuse Aragorn was leaning over the table, whispering at him conspiratorially. 

“I’ll even let you bring work. Otherwise, I am afraid I will have to dine with some stuffy noble. They always seem to know when I don’t have plans….” Aragorn sat back, with a frown that looked decidedly unkingly. Faramir found himself laughing, and though it was nothing but an exhale, Aragorn beamed at him. 

——

“Does it pain you still?” Aragorn asked that evening, as they ate dinner over a stack of endless reports. Faramir did not hear him at first—indeed he felt far away, thinking over Calmacil and his retainer, his eyes moving over the papers in front of him unseeing as he rubbed unconsciously at his slinged wrist, digging his thumb in deep till it hurt. But then he startled, jumping as Aragorn reached across their small table, encircling his wrist limply and pulling it gently away from his ruined arm. 

“Pardon?” Faramir asked after a long moment, and Aragorn’s eyes seemed deeper then, as he looked at Faramir closer than he had before. 

“Your arm,” he said, “does it hurt?” Faramir was shaking his head before Aragorn had finished speaking. 

“No, apologies.” He slowly detached his wrist from Aragorn’s hand and sat further back on the couch. “It is a bad habit, that is all. When I get too caught up in whatever it is I am doing.”

“You seemed caught up in things other than work,” Aragorn could see his mistake at once in the sudden the hardening of Faramir’s face—the cold shutter of emotions behind his eyes as he slipped into that cool impassivity. He looked so like Denethor then—when Denethor had still been young and when Aragorn had still been Thorongil—the face of a lord, impassible and remote, yet not the face of a man. Did Faramir realize it, how similar they could have been, had times not hardened Denethor's heart and driven him to madness? Had not made that cold mask anything but an illusion?

But then Faramir opened his mouth, and his voice was quiet and soft, and the illusion was shattered.

“Forgive me, my lord,” he said, tipping his head forward. “It will not happen again.”

“Peace, Faramir,” Aragorn held up his hands, open-palmed. “I meant only that you seemed troubled.” 

Faramir stared at him for a long moment, blinking. 

“I am alright.” 

Aragorn came to sit beside him on the settee, the cushion bowing under his weight and causing the other man to angle slightly towards him. Faramir could not hide his face here, with Aragorn beside him, and so stood at once to turn away, yet once again Aragorn caught at his wrist—a weak hold, so that the only thing really holding Faramir there was his unwillingness to pull away. 

“My lord-” Faramir began, his voice not but a whisper over the crackling of the fire, and he found he did not know what to say, did not know what to do. He could feel his heart then in his throat, wondered if Aragorn could feel too, in the looseness of his wrist, and he tipped his head forward so that his hair covered over his face. He thanked the gods that he had worn a high-collared tunic, so that not even the scars on his neck could be seen. 

“You do not have to do this, you know,” Aragorn said. “I can deal with Calmacil. In fact, I am sure Imrahil would thank you for the opportunity to run him through.”

“No, I must do at least this,” Faramir said, and it was something in his face—the flash of that skin, pale between strands of hair, the way he would not turn back towards Aragorn.  
.  
“You are still planning to resign, aren’t you?” Aragorn stood now, his hand still wrapped around Faramir’s wrist, but Faramir yanked his hand away and moved across the room to stand before the window. Aragorn did not follow him but waited, watching the tense line of his shoulders, the rise with each inhale. 

“I have no place here,” Faramir said at last, though his throat felt tight as he said it. Outside the sky was overcast and grey, as it had been when the orcs marched on Osgiliath. No rain fell, but the air was thick and heavy and cool. He shook his head. “I cannot stand it. The way the courtiers look at me. You have seen it already with Calmacil—it is the same as a flock of birds which pecks the sick or injured one until death, the culling of the herd for the health of the others.” He walked then to the fireplace, Aragorn frowning after him. 

“And yet you are the sharpest among them, with skills and qualities few men can boast of.” 

“Those qualities, if there they are, mean nothing in the face of opposition, judgment, due to my infirmity. You cannot afford to be associated with it.”

“I could stand no more to lose you as steward.” Aragorn crossed the room and laid a hand on his shoulder, yet Faramir did not turn around. He gazed into the fireplace, the embers there, red hot and shifting with the miasma of heat. He could feel it still—the burning, as if he was still caught up there in the flames, and had been, since the day they had borne him to that pyre. 

“Faramir, It does not matter to me,” Aragorn said. Faramir could feel the heat fill him, the sick rush of it, and he whirled, shouting, throwing off Aragorn’s hand.

“It does matter!” His voice echoed in the silence, and Aragorn looked stunned. Faramir paced to the other end of the room, tugging at his hair and growling.

“I will live out the rest of my life as an invalid, some useless scrap of a thing, who can neither fight nor speak without those looking on him in sadness or derision. To waste away from pain and pity until the last scrap of hope is twisted so far beyond recognition that one cannot remember pride nor honor, and it all becomes but a distant dream—where usefulness is the illusion of a wasted mind.” 

Outside, the rain still would not fall, the clouds slung low and bloated across the city, and the white stones looked not grey or white but an indefinable shade of blackened silver. The scorches stretched still from the battle, jagged scars of infirmity, wrapped around each circle like the loose fist of some great skeletal thing. 

Faramir breathed out then, shaky, and when he spoke again he was no longer shouting; 

“To be unable to tell the difference between reality and...honeyed words.”

Faramir turned then from the window, meeting Aragorn’s eyes. They were that same grey as the sky, wet and shining. Aragorn reached out but Faramir met him, wrapping that wrist in his own hand before it could touch him. 

“Don’t,” Faramir said, and when he dug his fingers into Aragorn’s wrist it ached, for he knew it was tight enough to bruise, yet he could not loosen that grip, for his body and mind seemed to turn against itself, every muscle tightened with fear. 

“Faramir,” Aragorn leaned forward, and Faramir stepped back again until his back hit the wall beside the window, and he could feel the cool chill of the stones through the thin fabric of his tunic. He could feel the panic, the breath quickening, and he worried then that Aragorn would never let him go, that he would be doomed always to some station of pity, of unrealized, sickening desire. 

“It was true, what he said about me.” Faramir bit out, breathy yet hard despite his trembling. Aragorn’s eyes drew down in confusion, and he could not meet them but looked away. “He could see it on my face, as well as anyone could.” But still, Aragorn did not understand. He closed his eyes, opened them again, blicking through wetness. “That I wanted you,” he choked, and shook Aragorn’s wrist. “Don’t you see? You must send me away. I am a sickness.” 

But Aragorn did not send him away. Instead, he stepped forward so that their bodies were almost touching. He could feel Aragorn’s breath on his face, the same as it had been that night in the corridor, and he could smell the mulled wine on his breath, the slow caress of heat. Faramir had to angle his head upward to see into his eyes, and when he did he saw there was no hate there, no disgust or loathing, and Aragorn still did not understand, did not see the need for this, to separate him the way one cuts the rot away from a trunk, lest it claims the whole tree. 

“Aragorn—Aragorn, please,” Yet Faramir could say no more, for Aragorn leaned forward then, and brought his lips down. Faramir’s eyes widened and he made a kind of strangled noise, far back in his throat, yet it was swallowed by the weight of Aragorn’s mouth, the flush press of his body, the warmth and the wet and the feeling of those lips against his and he did not understand.

Yet he felt his own eyes slipping closed, and his grip must have loosened then, for Aragorn was cupping his cheek in a calloused palm, crushing Faramir against him, the other running through Faramir’s hair and laying warm and heavy against the back of his skull. 

Faramir did not move; it felt good, so good, yet he knew they should not, and he tried to speak but Aragorn kept kissing him, swallowing up his protests, and soon Faramir’s knees grew weak, and the only thing holding him up was Aragorn’s body, flush against his own. His arms came up to grip at Aragorn’s shoulders, and then he was kissing back, his mouth falling open and he moaned as Aragorn thrust his tongue inside, the taste of mulled wine, and it felt so right. Faramir really would have collapsed then, wall or no had Aragorn not leaned down with him, reaching to wrap one arm around his shoulders and the other around his lower back. 

Aragorn tried to pull away but Faramir followed, and he could feel the pull of chapped lips, the drag of Aragorn’s hand down his back, the bump of their noses as he tilted his head. All around him was Aragorn, warm flesh and roving hands, and Faramir realized then with some horror that he was crying. He pulled his mouth away, gasping for breath, lips red and swollen. 

Aragorn led his head down to the quilted shoulder of his tunic, and even that smelled like rosehips, and Faramir was sobbing then, shaking for it, clutching there as Aragorn carded his fingers through his head, stroking the exposed side of his face and muttering to him, low and soothing.

“I’m sorry,” Faramir gasped through tears, and then “I’m sorry” again, and again and again, but Aragorn continued to shush him and rock him until the sobs slowed to full-body shudders 

“For what?” he whispered.

“That I am here. That you have to look at me, that I-” he choked, and Aragorn shushed him gently.

“Faramir,” he said, and he pushed Faramir’s hair from his face, trailing his fingertips over the wretched skin, and he brought his lips down and kissed him, again and again, and when finally he was done he folded Faramir to his chest, and whispered into his hair. “You are more beautiful than I deserve.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, the asexual, writing romance. Oh lordy lord. Only one chapter left!


	6. Chapter 6

It had been only a day since Aragorn had kissed Faramir in his office, and already it was difficult to get any work done. If before Aragorn hovered he now haunted, for he seemed beside himself with some kind of pleasant emotion. Faramir had always been shy, if not a bit stiff. In the moments Aragorn was not with him he felt doubt creep in, and shame, and wondered if perhaps this development was somehow his fault—that it had not simply stemmed from Aragorn’s own desires, but then Aragorn would walk into a room and beam at him, or squeeze his hand, or kiss him, and all was forgotten. Indeed, he could not remember seeing Aragorn so carefree, and every time the man sent one of those smiles at him—toothy and wide—he could not help but feel himself relax a bit, the sides of his own mouth tugging upward. 

And it was a quiet thing—this bond between them. It had always been there, since Faramir had woken in the Healing Houses, yet before where he had buried it beneath pain and doubt, now it emerged like the new shoots of an early spring thaw. Faramir still turned his face from his king often, yet Aragorn would guide him back with a hand on his jaw, towards some new problem for Faramir’s mind to delight in untangling. 

Like the matter of Calmacil. 

He sat now in the library, alone but for Imrahil’s own scribbling—for Aragorn had been called away on some matter of state and had asked the Prince to assist his steward.

Faramir frowned at the sheaf of papers before him. Éomer’s captain had delivered them this morning, and he compared them now with the early reports from Eldan. There was a discrepancy there, in many of the figures listed. Eldan had reported significantly more damage than Éomer’s man had—even when taking into consideration the amount of work Eldan had been able to do before the Rohirrim had joined them. Eldan had also reported more men under his command than seemed possible—for Éomer had also counted the Gondorians working on the project when he arrived, so to better make estimates of the progress of the repairs. And that led to the discrepancy of the allotted funds, for Eldan had been given money enough for his artificially inflated numbers. 

Yet, it did not seem an issue merely of embezzlement from the kingdom. It was a fair bit of coin, but surely not enough to tempt a lord such as Calmacil to commit treason, to risk death and dishonor. Faramir frowned again, as seemed to be his lot these past few days—these past few years, really. 

The sun crested the shadow of a distant wall then, and shined through the window in such a way as to glare painfully across his eyes. Yet, when Faramir went to pull the curtains down, his gaze caught there, across the sprawl of the lower circles, and he remembered how, the day before, the cracks in the stone had looked like a decrepit hand, stretching over everything.

Had it really been an issue of Éomer’s men, at the heart of Calmacil’s rage, or something else Faramir had proposed that day? For Éomer’s report had revealed the discrepancy, but such a matter of numbers would surely have been overlooked by anyone else. No, this seemed to go deeper. Faramir had proposed not that the rubble be cleared for the sake of restoring the city, but for housing refugees—that properties be seized until such a time as they were needed no longer. 

“Imrahil,” Faramir asked, turning back towards his uncle, “are there any lords who own property in the lower circles?” 

Imrahil looked up from the stack of tomes before him, dropping a quill from ink-stained hands with what looked like relief. He thought for a moment before he nodded. 

“Yes. Why, I believe Calmacil has a number of warehouses there. They would have been blocked by the rubble…”

“Until Éomer’s men have cleared them,” Faramir finished, and he felt swept up in some great thrum of excitement, the way one felt before the turn of a hard battle. “And then we would have seized and occupied them.”

Imrahil frowned and rose to his feet, pacing back and force across the floor, rubbing at his stubbled chin (and leaving some ink there). 

“He is hiding something there?” Imrahil asked. 

“It seems likely.” 

“Calmacil will have to be called away, lest he enacts some treachery. Or tries to run.” When Imrahil spoke his words came quickly, as if he too were swept up in that same thrum, and his eyes seemed to shine in the flickering lamplight. 

“I will arrange a meeting with him in the citadel—he will think I have given in to his demands,” Faramir said, “but we will have guards posted outside the doors, to stop him if he tries to leave.” 

“And if he catches some inkling of this all before your meeting? You are not worried he will try to defame you?”

“Calmacil has broken the law. He has forged government documents. His good word is forfeit. I am sure criminals have said much worse of their captors before.”

Yet still, Faramir felt the familiar clench of nerves, and it must have shown on his face, for Imrahil squeezed his good shoulder once before they left to find Aragorn. 

——

Calmacil’s warehouse was not accessible. Of course, that should have been obvious given the need for the rubble clearing, yet it seemed as if Eldan had redirected Éomer’s captain at every move away from the large building, to the other parts of the circle. As it was, large chunks of stone blocked the entrance and had even smashed through some of the stone wall, so that the only way inside might have been through a decidedly precarious scaling of that rock wall, and a subsequent tumble through the provided hole. 

It would not have done for the public to see their king and steward scaling detritus piles in such a way, yet both had been rangers, and it was not hard for them to appear in such a way again. Though Imrahil had flatly refused to be a party to such foolish antics, he also felt it was his duty to ensure the steward and king did not come to harm, so found himself sliding up and down the dusty rocks after them, scoring great lines of white dust across the fine cream color of his tunic. 

It was not so easy for Faramir to scale the great boulders with only one arm, so often Aragorn would turn and offer him a hand, or Imrahil would give him a boost. Faramir endured the treatment with no small degree of embarrassment until Aragorn turned to lift him over a particularly craggy section by grabbing Faramir around the waist and pulling him to his chest. Faramir blushed deeply at the look Imrahil gave them, and took great effort to avoid his uncle’s eyes, for now he was glaring daggers at the back of Aragorn’s head. 

When they finally reached the hole and dropped down to a crooked, creaking wood floor, they were met with an empty room. It was cavernous, and dark, and smelt of stale smoke and old, mildewed rain. It had all the marks of a warehouse, long abandoned, Faramir could see as he squinted through the darkness and dust. The walls were uneven—the mark of many of the older buildings in Minas Tirith, where stone had settled into dirt over the years, and the floor was lumpy with mismatched boards. Yet the dust inside seemed new—rock dust and soot blown in from the falling rubble and splayed unevenly across the floor. Yes, something had been here but moved, for the soot stopped in some places and resumed in others. 

“Do you think Calmacil has already been here?” Aragorn’s voice echoed in the expanse, and each of his footsteps caused the planks to knock about for their loose nails. “It would not have been hard to send men in through that hole, though I do not see how they could have transported any cargo back out. And certainly not in secret.”

Faramir stared hard at the ground, nudging the boards with his foot. There were gaps in the floor, as if someone had moved the planks and set them back in the wrong order, and some looked fresher than others—cleaner and less worn, as though they had been pulled up and flipped. 

“This floor has been tampered with,” Faramir said. He knelt down to tug at one of the planks, yet with one hand he lacked the power needed to pull it free. Aragorn knelt beside him, and between the two of them the plank dislodged, then the next and the next. 

It was dark, and yet in the hole beneath the boards something could be seen clearly, for the space beneath them was vast, opening into a hidden cellar, and there in the dark were rows upon rows of crates. And when they climbed into the cellar they found the crates full of rugs and other finery—bolts of fabrics and jugs of dyes, tea and spices. These were things of Harad, things Gondor had enjoyed in much bounty years ago, and now were a veritable treasure trove. Yet, none of these bore import stamps, or had any official markings whatsoever. Indeed, trade had been suspended during the war on Denethor's order, for what country would feed trade revenue to it’s enemy?

“There is a logbook, here,” Aragorn called, from a small room near the end of the cellar. Indeed, a logbook had been kept—detailed accounts of shipments smuggled by sea and into the gates of the white city. Weights and prices and distributors. Faramir doubted any of the names were real, yet there was, bound in the back of the book, a sheaf of missives, and though they had no names they bore Calmacil’s seal. It was more than they would need. 

——

Aragorn and Faramir walked through the corridors of the citadel, towards the room where they were to meet Calmacil. Imrahil had gone ahead of them, for he did not need to change out of his ranger garb, and was doubtless already waiting outside the room. 

As they wound through the corridors, and that room came nearer, Faramir at once felt very faint, like he could not breath deeply, and before he had even consciously recognized it himself, Aragorn was pulling out of the hallway to a small alcove tucked between two windows. Aragorn led them both down to the floor carefully, so they were reclined, side by side against the wall, and he reached one hand out to rest against the side of Faramir’s kneck and rub there soothingly. 

“You do not have to do this, you know,” but Faramir sighed, shaking his head. 

“I don’t know what I would think of myself, if I did not.” 

“You don’t seem to be the best judge of your own character regardless,” Aragorn said, and Faramir bit out a short laugh, tipping his head back against the stones. 

“No, I suppose I am not.” They sat there in silence for a long moment, until Faramir’s breathing came easier, and then Aragorn pulled him to his feet.

“At least let me do much of the talking,” Aragorn said, “You do not have to be so brave when you are surrounded by those who care for you.”

Faramir gave him a tight smile.

——

Calmacil stood as they walked in, and though he bowed to Aragorn he looked very put upon. 

“Sit.” Aragorn said. Yet Calmacil did not. Iinstead, his gaze snapped to Faramir, and his eyes were more shadowed than they had been, but they still were sharp, and depthless, in that way Denethor’s had so often been, towards the end. They were eyes that swallowed, ate up, and he would not look away from Faramir, even to address his king. 

“Why have I been called here? Why can I not leave?”

“Sit,” Aragorn’s voice was deadly, “or I will make you.”

Calmcil did look away then, though he glanced still at Faramir. Aragorn dropped the bolt of silk down on the table with a muffled thud and Calmacil paled, his eyes darting between the king and the fabric, yet he recovered quickly, his face covered over in cool impassivity. 

“It is a bolt of fabric,” Calmacil said. From the door, Imrahil scoffed. When Aragorn spoke, it was as if he was talking to a child. 

“It is your bolt of fabric. Your bolt of fabric, illegally imported from our sworn enemies during wartime, found in your warehouse, accompanied by your seal.”

“You do not understand—”

“I understand that you blackmailed my steward. That you threatened him, committed treason, to try to protect these stolen goods.”

“I see,” Calmacil said, and though his voice was calm it gained slowly in fervor as his eyes fell once more on Faramir. “Has he told you then? He must not have, or he would not be here. He would be hauled away, to rot in some darkened dungeons. Gnawed upon by rats and left to fester in cold and damp. Could you truly not know,” he leaned forward, arms resting on the table, and his eyes shined then, that sickened, fire-hot look, the one he had borne in the hallway, in the library, each lick of his gaze a boiling, bubbling thing. “That your—that your steward is an invert? Have you seen he acts around you? I have, the other councilors have.”

“That is enough!” Imrahil roared, striding forward and hauling Calmacil to his feet. Yet Calmacil did not stop, and he struggled against Imrahil’s arms, writhing and flailing like a worm stuck to the stones after the rain. 

“And his face—his face. It is shameful. Denethor would have locked him away. Denethor would have known what to do with him. Not parade him around like some circus freak!”

Calmacil threw his head back then, and it collided with Imrahil’s with a loud smack, yet the prince was not a stranger to combat, so despite the blood pouring from his nose he did not wholly release Calmacil. Yet, his grip was loosened enough for the councilor to shake free, and then he was advancing on Faramir, spitting and raving. 

Aragorn was not close enough to do anything, Imrahil was still staggering. Calmacil raised his hand. 

A loud slap reverberated around the room. For a long moment after there was silence. Faramir stood with his hand still raised, and Aragorn and Imrahil’s eyes were as wide as Calmacil’s, whose cheek was bright red, head turned to one side. Then Aragorn moved, hauling Calmacil bodily across the room, slamming the councilor against the wall and grinding his face there against the roughness of the stones. 

“I hereby strip you of all land and all titles, from your generation to the next,” he growled. “Your house will bear the mark of this shame, should they choose to stand with you. You will be held until such a time as the investigation is fully concluded, and then you will leave Gondor, and never return.”

Aragorn handed him off the Imrahil then, who looked horrifically gleeful as he hauled Calmacil from the room, shoving him with extreme prejudice. He did not seem terribly moved when the councilor’s arm slammed against the doorframe with a resounding thud, nor when the other man groaned, but rather continued to drag him down the hallway and towards the dungeons. 

Faramir watched after them, his muscles tightening, and he realized he was trembling. ‘You still do not understand,’ Calmacil had spat, and he wondered if he ever would. But Aragorn was turning him then, capturing his face between rough palms and bringing their foreheads together, and soon Faramir forgot all worries, for Aragorn did not let him go for a long while. 

—-

Faramir stood in the gardens overlooking the city. The days had grown warmer now, and the first spring blossoms had faded, making way for the hardier flowers of summer; larkspur, phlox and sweet pea. Still, he wore a thick cloak of dark velvet, for often any chill would creep deep to his bones and set there an ache that was difficult to banish. The wind was such that he could smell the smoke from the circles below—cookfires and torches alike, and even the smell of the snowmane’s howe from the Pelennor. 

So absorbed was he in observing the passage of spring to summer that he did not notice Aragorn come up behind him until a pair of arms wrapped around his waist. He jumped in surprise, but Aragorn began to pepper kisses along his jaw so that he gave in to rather embarrassing giggles, and wrapped his own hands around Aragorn’s, leaning back against him. 

“It is such a lovely day I thought,” Aragorn said, “that it would be a great crime for you to waste it indoors in some stuffy study. Yet here I find, after much searching, that not only are you not working, but you have beaten me outdoors!”

“Perhaps I meant to enjoy the land in solitude, before you came to distract me.” Faramir said. Aragorn guffawed and spun him, peppering kisses along his jaw. 

“Me? A distraction!” Aragorn laughed. He held Faramir tighter as he tried to wiggle free, yet both of them were laughing hard, and soon the struggles had upended the pair of them so they tumbled to the grass, landing atop one another. That set them laughing even more, so that after a few moments they had to lay to catch their breath, Faramir atop Aragorn, their legs tangled together. 

He pillowed his head there, against Aragorn’s heaving chest, listening to the thrum of heartbeat and feeling the slow leech of warmth. Aragorn brought his hands up and threaded them through the stewards' hair, and they lay silent, enjoying only each other’s company and the breeze from the fields. 

After a time Aragorn shifted and made a noise beneath him, so Faramir propped himself up and gazed down at him. His eyes were not so open as they had been before, and there were lines between his brow that made him look older than he was. 

“What is it?” Faramir asked. Aragorn did not answer at first, but brought his hand up to brush away the hair that had fallen over those scars. It had become a habit of his, these past weeks. He stroked a finger over his cheekbone, his eyes growing softer, and he pulled Faramir back down. His chest rumbled as he spoke, soothing tremors that tickled Faramir’s skin.

“Calmacil is dead. They found him hung in his cell this morning.”

“Suicide?”

“It seems that way. Does it upset you?”

Faramir thought for a moment, for he was not sure. To be upset was such a... concrete thing, and to not feel it would be to imply a lack of sadness, which was not the case at all. He was always sad at death, yet he had known so much of it that he had become at least in part numb to it, so that its ache was but the lingering melancholy of his thoughts, as opposed to any real throbbing thing. 

“His wife was sick,” Faramir said. His fingers sought out the grass, and he twirled the strands in his palm. “I found it in the records last night, while I was helping Loreth catalog her patients. She had been caught in a house fire, years ago. We all thought she had died, yet he had simply hidden her away, where none could see her.” 

Aragorn’s hand found his, guiding it away from the grass, and he realized then he had crushed them—those strands, and his fingers came away stained yellow and green.   
“Loreth says he had taken to...experimental treatments,” he continued, “and perhaps that is why he needed the money.”

“To keep her isolated—” Aragorn began, and he sounded angry, sorrowful, but Faramir shook his head against Aragorn’s chest.

“Her wounds were worse than mine, if Loreth is to be believed. I do not think she could have gone about, even if she had wanted to.”

“To keep them apart would be cruel. Perhaps we should go to her, to let her know?” Aragorn asked gently, but Faramir shook his head again. 

“She is dead now. She died the day before yesterday.” He traced his hands over the contours of Aragorn’s hand, the dips and callouses and old wounds. “I keep asking myself—I keep trying to make sense of it. How he could care for his wife so deeply as to risk such a scheme. To care for her so but to leave her as he did, isolated and alone. What must he have seen when he looked at me?” Faramir asked. He pushed himself up on his elbows now to look down at the other man, and Aragorn saw then the tears in his eyes, and Faramir did not wipe them away as he had done so often but allowed them to fall, dropping one by one to darken the fabric of Aragorn’s tunic. 

“That I should live,” Faramir said, “despite everything, and she should not? So often I have faced death. When I was born, none thought I should last past my first winter, and then the war, and the Pelennor, and the—” His voice caught, choking, and Aragorn reached up to wipe the tears away, and when his hand met skin Faramir’s eyes fluttered closed.

“It is not for us to decide, Faramir, how and why we should leave this world, but for those close to us to hope and pray, and thank the gods each day that they have been granted this gift. That those they love have survived, despite everything. We cannot measure our lives against others, for there is no reason in death.” 

Faramir’s eyes looked far away, shining still with tears, yet when Aragorn went to pull Faramir against him the younger man resisted. Leaning up instead of down, Faramir kissed him, hard, so that their lips stung and their noses knocked. It was a bruising, desperate kiss, and when at last Faramir pulled away they were, the both of them, breathless. Aragorn looked at him in confusion, but Faramir smiled, teary, leaning down to kiss him once more. 

“What was that for?” Aragorn asked, when at last they broke apart. 

“You said ‘those they love’,” he whispered.

Aragorn blushed, but he did not deny it. Instead, he leaned up to kiss his steward once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus we end on tooth-rotting fluff :)
> 
> When I started this fic I thought it would only be 5k, and we have ended over the 20k mark. I blame all of my wonderful reviewers for giving me the strength I needed to carry on. Wanting to fuck up Calmacil was also very good motivation. 
> 
> I will be shifting to other fandoms for a while, but LOTR is my home fandom, so fear not! I shall return, both to write more, and edit this fic.


End file.
